Movie Titles in German
Filmtitel auf Deutsch mit Quiz

German actress Franka Potente
and Johnny Depp in Blow (2001).
Foto: New Line Cinema

About 70 to 80 percent of the movies that Germans watch in their Kinos or on video/DVD come from Hollywood. Not that Germany doesn't have a thriving movie industry and very capable actors and directors, but despite notable exceptions like DAS BOOT, MÄNNER, LOLA RENNT, DER SCHUH DES MANITU, or GOOD-BYE LENIN, and other German productions, Germans generally avoid German movies. Even a popular German film often has a much lower box office than the average Hollywood production.

Before a Hollywood motion picture reaches German audiences, at least two things have happened: (1) The film has been dubbed (synchronisiert) into German and (2) the title has been Germanized, or following a trend in the last few years, the English title has been given a German tag line (Shrek - Der tollkühne Held). Sometimes the German title is a direct and obvious translation (Der Prinz von Ägypten, Schrei), but often it can be difficult to figure out from the German what the original English title was: Eine Hochzeit zum Verlieben = The Wedding Singer. In some cases the English title just doesn't work in German. Both the Hemingway novel and the movie version of The Sun Also Rises became “Fiesta” in German (which was also the British title for the American novel).

The German Movie poster
for Cast Away (2000).

But the same thing can happen when a German film is released overseas. The original title of the German movie starring Franka Potente of Lola rennt fame was Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (“the warrior and the empress”) when it first played in Germany in 2000. For its theatrical release in North America in 2001, the English title became “The Princess and the Warrior”—which not only reverses the two title figures but demotes an empress to princess. Potente also appeared in the Hollywood production Blow (2001). That film's title in Germany: Blow. More recently, Potente was featured in the two “Bourne” spy movies: Die Bourne Identität and Die Bourne Verschwörung. While the first title is a literal translation, the second changes the original “supremacy” to “conspiracy” (Verschwörung). See BOURNE in Berlin for more about Die Bourne Verschwörung and its Berlin setting.

One brief grammar point: Unlike English, only the first word and any nouns are capitalized in German titles (books or movies). Adjectives and most other words are not groß geschrieben, as in “A Simple Plan” - Ein einfacher Plan.

Just for fun, we've put together a few movie title trivia quizzes to test your ability to match up the original Hollywood English titles with the German. In every case we have used the official German title that the studios used when the film was released in Germany. After you look at our English-German Filmtitel-Lexikon see if you can match the German and English film titles in our quizzes. What was Pirates of the Caribbean called in German?

NEXT > Filmtitel-Lexikon - English-German

MORE > German Movie Guide

Some Related Pages

• BOURNE in Berlin
• Lola's Running on Video
• DVD Details
• Top German DVDs and Videos
• German Video Highlights

MORE > Filmtitel - Part 1 > Part 2 > Quiz

WEB > German-Hollywood Movie Posters from The German-Hollywood Connection

German Newsletters
Subscribe to a free newsletter!

German Chat
Chat in German or about German!

OUR GERMAN FORUMS

German for Beginners
Our free online German course.